The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) intends to help Jamaican government to launch its own renewable energy procurement drive. For this it plans to hire services of a consultant to prepare renewable generation procurement guidelines.

In a Request for Expressions of Interest (EOI) launched, the IDB has sought applications from eligible consultants who will be required to support the generation procurement entity (GPE) by developing general generation procurement guidelines and rules.

This would enable the commencement of generation procurement activities and specific procurement rules for renewables aligned with the country’s Integrated Resource Plan (IRP), customized to the nation’s context. Jamaica targets to achieve 50% renewables share in its national energy mix by 2037.

Selected consultant will have time till August 31, 2022 to complete the work.

As per the IDB call, last date for interested and eligible consultants to respond to this EOI is September 20, 2021.

The GPE was formed under The Electricity Act, 2015 of Jamaica to procure new generation capacity, manage the replacement of old capacity, and also to manage and administer the process for competitive procurement. According to the IDB, once the procurement guidelines are in place, it would facilitate the procurement of at least 268 MW.

So far, Jamaica Public Service (JPS) is the sole vertically integrated electric utility to transmit, distribute and supply electricity in the country with an installed capacity of roughly 640 MW, and is complemented with firm capacity of 262 MW through power purchase agreements (PPA), including close to 121 MW from renewables.